The present invention relates generally to plumbing devices and more specifically to a device to dislodge flow impediments in a pipe or drain.
Pipes to carry fluids are ubiquitous in homes, business, and in industrial settings. Fluids of all kinds are carried in pipes. These may range from gases to water, which are common in home settings, to pipes that carry highly viscus liquids, such as polymers or heavy crude oils or even molten metals or solid/liquid slurries. A characteristic of a piping system carrying liquid is that force applied to any one point of the pipe is carried by hydraulic forces to any other point within the system. For liquids, this means that water delivery to upper floors of skyscrapers are possible along with any number of other desirable results.
However, one of the problems in any fluid piping system is that the piping system is susceptible to blockage. Foreign objects can enter the system and can become entrapped within the confines of the piping. This inhibits or even may stop the fluid flow through that section of the pipe. Moreover, solids can build up on the interior of the pipe due to impurities within the fluid flow, corrosion of the pipe, or other causes and this can lead to effective reduction of the flow diameter of the interior pipe and inhibit the free flow of liquid through the pipe.
The interior of a piping system has limited access due to its very nature. Any drain or valve opening in the system is potentially a source of leakage from the system. This means that the liquid contained within the system can leak out. This can result in damage caused by the liquid once it escapes the pipe and/or wastage of the liquid within the pipe. Anyone who has ever left a drain open in their home and seen the resulting water bill or had a pipe break due to freezing of water and seen the resulting water damage can appreciate why piping systems are limited access systems. However, this limited access creates problems of its own. Anyone unclogging a sewer drain or bathroom sink drain knows that a blockage at a point inaccessible from the opening can cause major problems. Consequently, a variety of devices have been employed to unclog blockages in plumbing systems or in drain valves.
One type of device that is used to break up a clog is a plumber""s snake. This is simply a long flexible tube that is passed down a pipe. The flexible nature of the snake allows it to pass through S-shaped places in the pipe that are used as a drain trap to extend through the pipe to the point where the blockage may occur. There the end of the snake is used to physically break up or otherwise unclog whatever is blocking the pipe. Some of these devices employ a rotating blade to clear out such things as tree roots. One common commercial service that deploys this method is called xe2x80x9cRotor Rooterxe2x80x9d.
Another way of attacking clogs in drain traps or pipes is to use a chemical agent. Usually some type of caustic agent is employed for this purpose, commonly some kind of lye is used in home applications. Drano(copyright) is one type of chemical caustic agent employed.
In industrial settings regular maintenance is required on piping systems. This is especially true where the piping systems are employed to transport chemicals that may be highly viscus or may have a large amount of dissolved chemicals present within the liquid substrate. Oftentimes, the chemicals being transported within the pipes are themselves caustic or may in some other way be harmful to people who could be exposed to the chemicals. To facilitate scheduled maintenance of a piping system, a series of drain valves will be placed throughout the system to open and drain a portion of the system in fluid communication with those drain valves. However, the drain valves themselves are particularly subject to blockage since they are ordinarily substantially smaller in diameter than is the pipe on which the drain valve is fitted. Hence, if between times of cleaning, the drain valve itself becomes clogged, it cannot serve its purpose to allow regularly scheduled maintenance of industrial pipes. Moreover, the entire bottom of a pipe can be clogged with sediment effectively closing off the drain valve. When a blockage occurs, typically, an employee will be required to go to that drain valve and using a rigid rod force an opening through the blockage to allow flow out of the drain valve. However, frequently the employee must dress in protective clothing since the blockage may consist of caustic or otherwise dangerous chemicals. The liquid within the pipe may be under pressure, resulting in a sudden outflow of caustic or otherwise dangerous chemicals potentially injuring the worker. Additionally, the liquids and chemicals may be at a higher temperature than is safe. All of these factors may result in considerable risk to the worker who is required to open a clogged drain valve.
A number of patents have been developed for dealing with blockages within a system. One common method employed is to use a mechanical force transmitted by hydraulic pressure from a remote point to the point of the blockage. Perhaps the simplest and most commonplace example of this type of system is the plunger or plumber""s helper used in home settings. An example of a patented apparatus employing hydraulic pressure is seen in Engle U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,154. There a purging assembly is connected to the blocked pipe system by a connector. A sub-assembly produces repeated hydraulic shocks through the fluid in to the blocked pipe system. This device is particularly well adopted for use in extensive piping systems found in large building complexes. Burns U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,361 uses a different technology. Here transducers are connected to a drain trap to produce ultrasonic signals to create vibrations within the drain trap. It is believed that these vibrations are effective in clearing the clogging material. A moveable mechanical device is disclosed in Hammelman U.S. Pat. No. 4,173,806. There an apparatus with an adjustable washer slidably engages the internal surface of a pipe. Pressure from a fluid propels the housing forward until the housing encounters an obstruction. Cutting tools are fitted into the housing for clearing the obstruction. Ramsey U.S. Pat. No. 2,576,640 discloses a combined clean out and flow control device for fluid lines. This involves a mechanical plunger. It is designed particularly for use in a pipe where there is a reduced aperture for controlling the flow of fluid. In Ramsey a generally cylindrical shaped body is threaded into an inlet to the pipe. There is a plunger threaded onto the cylindrical body to clean an obstruction. The plunger is pushed inward into the draining system. Beliveau U.S. Pat. No. 528,459 shows a permanently fitted plunger to a drain trap and a rubber disc is fitted inside the pipe approximately the diameter of the pipe with a T-shaped plunger connected to the rubber disc and outside of the pipe. When the drain trap clogs, one simply pushes the plunger down to clear the pipe by hydraulic and mechanical pressure. Gall U.S. Pat. No. 267,308 shows a mechanical scraper device permanently fitted in a drain trap. It can be withdrawn and extended through a portion of the drain trap to mechanically clear an obstruction caught within the drain trap. However, despite all of this prior art there is still room, especially in industrial applications, for a new way of cleaning obstruction in pipes.
Accordingly it is an object of the current invention to provide a mechanical means for clearing a blockage in a piping system at a drain valve or at other locations where blockages occur frequently. It is an object of the current invention to provide for greater worker safety in an industrial environment when dealing with blockages in piping systems for caustic chemicals or fluids at high or low temperature. It is an object of the current invention to provide for remote operation of the blockage clearing apparatus. It is an object of the current invention to provide an apparatus that may easily be adopted to different modes of powering the mechanical means for clearing the blockage.
A preferred embodiment of the present invention is a plunger device fitted to a threaded coupling device for connection to a pipe. It will be placed at a position or point in a pipe where a blockage may be expected. For example, six-inch steam pipes are common in industrial applications. Often there will be dissolved minerals in the steam. Over a period of time the minerals dissolved in the steam will precipitate on the pipe, building up within the pipe to reduce the diameter of the pipe. These steam pipes will frequently be fitted with drain valves used as part of the regular maintenance of the steam pipes. Thus, during a maintenance period, the steam will be purged from the pipe and a chemical solvent may be used to clean the interior of the pipe. The solvent must be drained from the pipe by the drain valves that have been placed in the pipe for that purpose. However, frequently these drain valves will become clogged or the pipe itself may be completely coated in sediment at the location of the drain valve. In either case the drain valve must be broken open. Currently, if a drain valve is clogged, a worker will be dressed in a protective suit, be provided with a rod of appropriate diameter, and will be sent to a clogged drain valve with instructions to use the rod to break open the mechanical obstruction. This operation may be required when the pipe is filled with the chemical solvent or when the pipe is filled with steam. When the obstruction is cleared, there will be a flow of whatever is in the pipe out the drain valve, be it solvent or steam. This can pose a danger to the worker. Consequently, it would be an advance in the art to provide a drain valve mounted, mechanically actuated rod system, which could be used to clear any block of a drain valve. This would eliminate the need for a worker dressed in a protective suit to manually clear the blockage. The invention can be permanently mounted on each drain valve, since it is relatively simple to build and inexpensive to use. It could be provided with a pneumatic power source, since most plants have air pressure lines readily available. Hydraulic power could be employed as well to accentuate the piston that is used to physically clear the blockage or an operator could use a hammer to hit one end of the rod to force open the blockage in a drain valve.
Although the current invention will find its widest application in already pre-fitted drain valves for piping systems, it may also be used in other piping applications. For example, various types of plastics or polymers are heated to the melting point and transported through pipes as a heated liquid. However, where these pipes have a sharp turns, xe2x80x9ccoldxe2x80x9d spots can develop. The molten plastics solidify if the temperature at these spots drops below the melting point of the material being transported through the pipes. Thus, a blockage can develop at these xe2x80x9ccoldxe2x80x9d spots. The current invention could be fitted into an opening and aligned in a way that would enable the current invention to operate periodically or as required to break any solidified plastics or other materials away from the walls of the transport pipe at these xe2x80x9ccoldxe2x80x9d spots.
It is another advantage of the current invention that it may be made as a simple compact, potentially portable apparatus for use in applications that use pre-existing drain fittings. It is of further advantage the present invention operates by mechanical force and does not create stress on the pipe system itself by introducing or requiring high hydraulic pressures within the pipe system. The present invention reduces or eliminates the need for an introduction of chemical agents into the fluid to dissolve or otherwise remove blockages around a drain valve.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will become clear to those skilled in the art upon a review of the following specification and claims.